Spiders

     Spiders are scary.  They hide in dark places and wait there to bite you.  One time, I saw a video from a hut in Africa about this really aggressive really poisonous spider species that would crawl up broom handles and bite you and then you DIE!  So now I'm afraid to kill spiders with brooms because they will crawl up the handle and bite my face and then I will die even though we don't have this species in Iowa.  At least, they're not native.  A lot of times gigantic jungle spiders hide in bananas and other fruit and they wait, just wait, in the bananas until they get to the grocery store and then they launch themselves at the faces of unsuspecting grocery store people and bite them and then the grocery store people DIE!
    Spiders are also tricksy.  One time, I was staying at Lakeside Lab by Okoboji and a wolf spider the size of a dessert plate lived above the door inside the women's bathroom.  It wedged its nasty body between the limestone rocks and its freak legs splayed out on all around and it waited.  During the day it lurked and snagged flies and mosquitoes but late at night, it waited for unsuspected college girls who had to pee to wander in.  Then it would drop on her face and bite her and SHE WOULD DIE!  No one actually died.  We can only assume that all the girls learned to hold it until morning.
     Even dead spiders are dangerous.  They have spider cooties.  Spider cooties make you sick and give you cancer.  Wash your hands after handling dead spiders.  Or use a vacuum to avoid contact.  NEVER use a vacuum on a live spider.  Vacuums will not kill a spider.  They will lurk inside the vacuum and then crawl out when you go to sleep and bite your face.  The preferred method for killing spider is a pressure sprayer.  Because, unlike broom handles, spider cannot climb water.  If you can't use a pressure sprayer where you are at, kill the spider with short jabs from the broom so hopefully the spider won't be able to climb it.  Remember, you always have the option of screaming and running away.  Screaming will stun the spider so it won't chase you.  It also helps to scream when you kill a spider so it gets stunned and holds still.
*Note:  Regulations allow up to EIGHT spider legs per chocolate bar.  Just don't think about it.  Or try to think of it as added protein
Here are some spider things for your enjoyment
http://www.cracked.com/funny-1934-spiders/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc
**Note:  A kitty just walked by me and I pet the kitty.  This somehow makes me less afraid that there is a spider in my pop.

Lentil Mother-Trucking Soup!

So, as I sit here doing the dishes and drinking my cranberry wine I realized that I mentioned my lentil soup in the last post of pointless stuff.  So, to fill you all in I made Spicy Egyptian Lentil Soup a while back and it was GOOOOOOOD!  Lots of vitamins and nutrients like iron and some fiber and stuff and I ate it with pita bread!  Here's a picture of it.  I should probably start posting the recipes for my foods if I have them (which for this one I do) but right now I'm lazy and in the middle of doing dishes and don't want all the water to drain away while I'm typing.  So, soup.  It may look like baby vomit, but it tastes like awesomeness.  Will probably post one or two more pics later so it's just not this pic of ugly baby vomit soup.  Here you go.
*Note:  I burn frickin' everything on my stove.

Sometimes I Fail at Being an Adult and Am Ok With It

     So, today I had big plans.  Ok, that's a filthy lie.  I didn't have BIG plans.  I just had plans to clean and do homework.  But, in all honesty, I REALLY needed to clean and do homework because I'm out of clean bowls and my apartment smells like old lentil soup because of the dirty bowls and I need to read the four papers from last week that I only skimmed so I can write a paper on them.  So, in terms of importance, this day was big.
     What really happened is that I sat in my rocking chair and did...something.  I don't really remember what I did but my computer was up so probably I sat and looked at stuff on the interwebs for a long time.  This happens a lot this whole I do something that is not important for hours at a time at the expense of important things.  The best way to do this is with Little Smokies, but the last time I was at the store they were out of Little Smokies and I was all "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!  WHAT IS THE POINT OF CIVILIZATION????????" so no  tiny hot dogs today.  Luckily, last night I got crispy noodles with chicken and veggies from IPPA in Cedar Falls (go there.  it is good.) so I would randomly microwave a small portion of that and nom down on it while doing stupid pointless stuff.  All that has been accomplished today is that laundry got done which is good because this girl was in dire need of important things like pants, underwear, and socks.
     So, yeah.  Today has been a lot of internet surfing and watching random movies and HGTV.  I did write about three sentences of my four page paper and they were really important sentences so that's pretty much a win.  Then I started reading other people's blogs and got lost in that and decided to be all like "meh...homework...whatevs..." and opened a bottle of cranberry wine.  We'll see how far I get on that bottle tonight.  At this point I kind of have to drink it because I fail at opening bottles of wine and broke the cork off so now I have nothing to put in the bottle if I want to stop drinking it and there are little bits of cork floating in the wine.
     I promise, I started writing this post with a serious train of thought but forgot what it was now it's pretty much gone and this entire post is mindless rambling.  I've been doing that a bit today.  Like, I went to open the wine and brought my glass that I had been drinking water out of to pour wine in.  Opened the bottle of wine (eventually), looked over, and was all "Holy crap!  There's a glass all ready and waiting here!" like it was something fortuitous even though I had consciously decided to use my water glass for my wine and then forgot in about 45 seconds.  Anywho, it's probably time to wrap this post up being as it has no point to begin with.  Here's a pic of my failure! :)  Criminy, in the five minutes it took to spew these words out I drank a glass of wine.

*Note:  It has been commented that my blog is called "The Wandering Molly" and that, thus far, there has been very little in the way of wandering.  First of all, I can't just go whipping out my camera and snapping pictures everywhere I go.  That's rude, people.  Secondly, it's winter and I am a grad student busy with homework.  Like a groundhog, I will venture into the world and wander more when it's warm outside and when finals are over.  That is all.

**Note:  That is NOT all.  My ears are stuffed up and echoing.  So when I was eating chocolate chips it sounded like Godzilla was munching on rocks.  I have decided that Godzilla is awesome and, therefore, I am awesome.  And I should actually fill my allergy med prescription so my ears don't get stuffed up.  That is all.

Valentine's Day

     So, Valentine's Day.  Historically, one of the most awkward holidays ever.  Unwanted pressure to figure out romantic plans and stuff.  Should we go out?  Where should we go?  What kind of fancy clothes does this require?  Should I get him a gift?  If he asks me if I want a gift what should I say? 

     In general, I try to keep things low-key.  I mean, I can do fancy.  I'm just as comfy ordering pizza and watching a zombie movie.  As far as gifts go, I am so much more likely to make something delicious. (because the way to man's heart is through his stomach, you know?)  And cooking is more fun than staring at manly stuff in a store contemplating if he's allergic to this calogne or would this game run on his computer or whatever type of manly things the internet suggested I buy my man. 

   This year Valentine's Day would be celebrated with the bf.  Debate over plans went through my head for a while.  Mostly about what I was going to make.  The bf likes cheesecake.  Fact.  Was pretty sure bf wanted to go out which he later confirmed by being like "hey, pick a place."  Bf also likes chocolate things pretty sure.  Also think that the bf likes dinosaurs because everyone likes dinosaurs.  From these ideas was born the dinosaur cheesecake.  Went a a wild hunt to look for dinosaurs and found them ia the Dollar Store.  Made the cake.  Ready for hot date.  Woo!

     Hot date rolls around and we're both dressed fancy heading to Cu in Waterloo.  Fancy restaurant, fancy food.  Everything was tasty.  Service was excellent.  Would definately reccommend Cu for hot dates.  I've already gotten online to figure out the balsamic vinegar reduction that was drizzled over the grilled bruschetta and have every intention of recreating this recipe at home. 

     Meanwhile, the dinosaur cheesecake is in the bf's fridge just awaitin'.  I was suuuuuuuuuper excited about this cheesecake.  Mostly because it had dinosaurs, but also because I put a lot of thought into this cheesecake and had specially tweaked a recipe that I had used before.  Description of this cheesecake:  white chocolate cheesecake covered in dark chocolate ganache with Oreo cookie crust.  Two dinosaurs perched on top.  (I'm the blue dinosaur with the heart.  It's like my dinosaur is giving his dinosaur a Valentine's card.  Obviously)This cake was going to be goooooooooooood. 

     The problem was that we were both entirely too full for cheesecake.  Had to wait until the next day, but it was a hit with the bf.  Absolutely no way he could eat en entire cheesecake so it was decided that we would cut up half into bite sized pieces to share with people later.  Asked him if he wanted to keep the half he had eaten or the whole half and he decided he wanted to keep a whole half.  Win.

*Update.  At people's house with leftover cheesecake.  Big hit.  Win.  I'm awesome.

    

Thursday: I become a woman/member of society

     So, Thursday nights my bf's group of friends gets together at someone's house and that person makes a meal for everyone.  Good food, camaraderie, and stuff abound.  This week was my bf's turn and he was all, "you wanna cook something?" and I was all, "uh...k."  I've never cooked for 10ish people by myself before and didn't really know what a main dish designed to serve so many people required in quantity of ingredents. 
     My fallback for food is soup (I will probably post a blog devoted to soup later on.  Soup is kind of a big deal in my life.).  However, I was specifically asked to make not soup so that left me drawing a blank.  Ran a few ideas by my parents and by our receptionist at work who were all very helpful and very excited that I was cooking for a large group of people (Am I becoming a woman?  Do people think I'm a lonely hermit who never interacts with people?  Not sure.) and finally settled on shrimp alfredo (With peas because you should always add vegetables!).  Because it's good, you know?  So, back to the the problem of how big is food that feeds 10 people.  Dad advised me to go to food.com which was VERY helpful because I could just find a recipe and type in that the number of servings required.
     So, Thursday came and went.  Between the bf and I, we had some of the ingredients (I walked around with parsely, basil, and lemon juice in my backpack that day.  On an unrelated note, when parsley comes up I get "Scarborough Fair" stuck in my head because of the line "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme." Back to blogging!) and picked up the rest that evening.  We set to chopping and boiling and stirring and everything and the food was ready for consumption when everyone arived.  Food was eaten and most people took seconds which is a good sign.  Between that and the garlic bread no one went away hungry that's for sure.    All in all, a general success.  Stole another serving for lunch that day.  Eating shrimp alfredo (with peas) makes looking at biomass statistics better (I look at biomass statistics at work.  It's part of my job.)

*Note the awesome pasta scoop.  Called the "Pastasaurus" it is basically a more awesome way to scoop your pasta.  Also, note the real person stove.  This is my bf's stove, not mine.  My stove is one of those itty bitty college person stoves for college people.  I'm going to be a real person someday and that will probably mean I have a real person stove.

Health Month

     So, around New Year's my brother sent me a link for a game called Health Month where you're on a team of people wanting to get healthy.  I was busy doing... something... and ignored it.  A few days ago he sent me the link again and was all "plz?" and I was all "fine" so now I am on his team for Health Month.  My rules are something like drinking more water, cooking healthy dinners more often, and eating more fruit.  Keeping it simple.   I cut up a bunch of celery and bell peppers to eat, checked and made sure I had tea bags in the cupboard, and made a mental note to shove a clementine or apple in my backpack.  There are little smokies with cheddar in my fridge but they're fricking good so I choose not to care.  What's the point of life if you can't have little smokies???

     So, I was in my kitchen this weekend thinking about what I wanted to eat all week that would be healthy and tasty.  Put a pot on the stove, opened my fridge/freezer and started grabbing.  Carrots, celery, onion, spinach, green beans, and peas go into the pot along with spices that I glanced at and then grabbed and dumped into the pot.  Went to add chicken broth (low fat!) and realized I didn't have any.  A quick run to the store at 10:30p.m. and I have chicken broth (low fat!) and barley (heart healthy!) in my soup and it is happily boiling away.  A while later also found a can of tomato paste in my cupboard and dumped that in which resulted in scary looking thick soup but the addition of more broth fixed (Mom's idea) it so now I can follow my rule of eating healthy homemade food. Yay.  That was probably more than you needed to know about this soup but if that's the case you probably would have stopped reading by now.  Oh well.

    Anyway, here's a picture of my super healthy vegetable and barley soup.  It's in my bowl that I chipped when I accidentally dropped a jar of nuts on it.  This is why I can't have nice things.

     This is the mess that my happily boiling soup made.  Mr. Clean Magic Eraser knock-off handled the job, however, and my stove is once again all shiny and clean.

Getting Started

Hokay, so this is my first post on my first blog and I'm taking time out of doing the dishes to type this.  To give you an idea of what will likely be posted here let me just say that I am Molly.  I like to wander around and look at stuff.  While wandering around I tend to look for whatever type of unique food is available and then eat it.  So, there will be some postings and pictures about that.  I also like to try out cool recipes that I either find or am introduced to.  So, there will also be some postings and pictures about that.  And probably some postings and pictures about other stuff I do.  I don't know.  I'm dreaming big right now but am kind of lazy so we'll see what actually happens.  My goal for you followers (if any there be) is to entertain and also to force my excitement about the stuff I do into your lives via blog instead of just making you listen to me prattle on while at work, class, or just hanging out.  Hopefully I'll be posting some pics later tonight of my super tasty soup (which my co-workers previewed yesterday as that's what I ate for lunch).  This will happen if I remember where my camera is.  Anyway, that's all for now.